


The Flower Plague

by ellenoruschka



Series: Viva Verona [5]
Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1968), Romeo e Giulietta - Ama e Cambia il Mondo, Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic
Genre: Blood, Canonical Character Death, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know how else to tag this, Illnesses, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Romance, Unrequited Love, but I love them dearly, disaster husbands, those two are absolute cinnamon rolls and also stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:46:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellenoruschka/pseuds/ellenoruschka
Summary: He is not afraid of catching the disease himself: after all, he is not in love with anyone, is he? There is absolutely no risk.Or so he believes.





	The Flower Plague

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@shadowofqueenmab](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40shadowofqueenmab).



> The idea of this fic belongs to and was inspired by the Tumblr user and my good friend @shadowofqueenmab.
> 
> The Russian version of the text, translated by myself as well, lies here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/8625637

It is winter when the friar first develops a persistent dry cough that feels like there is a naughty cat trying to claw its way out of his throat. But the winds are cold and the rains are long, and Lorenzo doesn’t worry too much, deciding that he must have simply sat in the draught for too long.

So he continues with his usual routine, which, by this time, looks a bit different from that of a normal priest’s. Every Wednesday he visits the Prince of Verona in his library and spends a pleasant evening, talking to him and sipping mulled wine; this has been their favourite pastime for almost a year now. Besides, Lorenzo, skilled as he is in healing and the like, spends many evenings working on developing a cure for a peculiar illness that has been plaguing Verona for quite some time already. No one is sure who brought it into the city and just when exactly it happened, but it’s been several decades at least.

People call it the Flower Plague and fear it - quite fairly so, for Verona is a city torn by hatred and folly, and unrequited love is not a stranger to it. But never before has unrequited love equalled death… at least not until the Flower Plague came.

Lorenzo tries everything, but his medicines and potions can only numb the pain for a bit, and they certainly don’t heal. He even tries to use the flowers that the sick people cough up, hoping that maybe fighting fire with fire could help…

He is not afraid of catching the disease himself: after all, he is not in love with anyone, is he? There is absolutely no risk.

Or so he believes.

His belief shatters one winter morning when he wakes up to an unusually sharp coughing fit that soon subsides, leaving a small, soft violet petal in its wake.

Lorenzo crushes the petal in his hand and closes his eyes.

Later, he sets to work with renewed vigour, for the smell of the crushed petal and the colour and the shape of it send him to the library of the monastery. And indeed, after leafing impatiently through several old tomes, he stumbles upon - not even a recipe, just a tiny paragraph and a sketch of a flower that might just be exactly what Lorenzo needs for the medicine that he seeks to develop.

Having failed to find more information on the subject, he copies the paragraph and hurries home, not yet daring to hope. And a week later Verona is filled with rumours that friar Lorenzo has found a cure for the dreaded Flower Plague.

The rumours are soon proved to be true: those who have only begun to develop the symptoms are brought back to full health within a week, and those who have been suffering longer or developed the symptoms faster find it much easier to breathe, and none of them coughs up blood anymore - only flowers, and even those fits become shorter and less regular.

Verona is over the moon: finally there is nothing to fear. But no one knows just what exactly Lorenzo uses to make the cure; no one knows the cost at which it has come. No one even suspects that he suffers himself.

And Lorenzo does not want anyone to know. He does not even dare to hope that his feeling could possibly be returned; and what is more, through his own illness he can help others, so why even bother to stop it? It would be sensible to try and find the same flowers just growing somewhere in the woods, yes; but they look unfamiliar, he has never seen them anywhere, or he would know.

But Lorenzo is not the only one in Verona who has something to hide. One evening, upon hearing his uncle’s hacking cough, Mercutio enters his study, worried, without knocking, and freezes in his tracks. For there are bloodied violet flowers scattered across the table, and Escalus breathes heavily as he leans on the said table, pale and tired, one hand pressed to his mouth. He tries to smile at the sight of his nephew’s shocked and frightened face, but the smile comes out a little crooked.

“Who?..” Mercutio dares to ask, not really hoping for an answer. The Prince waves his hand dismissively.

“Unimportant. Don’t worry about it.”

Mercutio knows better than to argue; but he also knows the Flower Plague when he sees it, and knows that it kills. So the next day, there is a tiny bottle of medicine in front of Escalus, on the very table where the flowers had been.

Time goes by, and the Prince’s condition improves, for Mercutio brings him the medicine every week and makes sure that he drinks it. The coughing fits come less and less often, and by the beginning of summer Escalus is almost completely healthy… and has almost no time to care about his health, since Verona is once more filled with blood and death, fight after fight breaking out in its streets. Try as he might, he is unable to reason with his bloodthirsty subjects.

And then it’s July. And there is a duel. And a funeral. And then more deaths and funerals, and then there is finally peace. And Mercutio stops bringing Escalus the medicine, Mercutio stops bringing smiles to people’s faces; for he is no longer alive, and the only thing that he can now bring is bittersweet memories.

Lorenzo worries. His own illness develops very, very slowly, he is lucky; but the person Mercutio needed the medicine for might not be so lucky, and he does not know who that person is - Mercutio had never mentioned the name, and now Mercutio is dead, so how can he find out who needs his help?..

…he finds out soon enough, when at the end of August the Prince of Verona comes to the church for confession and he hears his wracking cough. Lorenzo does not need to ask: he knows the symptoms well by now, and he knows that the illness came back after a break… and he knows exactly how long that break was.

He also has no idea who the reason for the Prince’s suffering is, and he dares not ask. He merely offers his help, wishing to save the person he loves from death; and Escalus accepts. Half because he does not want Mercutio’s efforts to go to waste, half because it gives him the opportunity to see Lorenzo more often.

Their regular meetings had stopped at some point, which, to the Prince’s mind, was easily explained by how much time Lorenzo was spending on his cure. Escalus does not wish to disturb the man’s work… and oh well, the real reason he avoids Lorenzo as much as he could is that he is unwilling to make his feelings known but unable to hide them.

And yet Escalus is only human, so when the opportunity to see Lorenzo more often presents itself again, he seizes it without thinking.

So the Prince starts coming to Lorenzo for the medicine, every week, just like before. He has no idea what his visits do to the poor friar and how difficult it is for Lorenzo to hide both his feelings and his illness from him. He does notice that the friar looks more pale and gaunt than should be normal, though; but the man simply shrugs, “I work a lot.” And there is really nothing else Escalus can say. 

On his third visit the Prince arrives a bit earlier than usual and hears something he was not supposed to hear - that is, heavy wracking coughs reverberating behind the closed doors of Lorenzo’s… cell? laboratory? Escalus knows not how to name it, and really, it’s the least of his concerns right now. Frowning, he pushes the door… and freezes in his tracks, just like Mercutio several months prior.

“What…” He shakes his head and reaches out towards the table in front of him, not quite touching the flowers scattered across it. They are violet, large, still smeared with fresh blood… and they look familiar. Too familiar, actually. “But these are… Where did you get these?”

Escalus focuses his gaze on Lorenzo and realizes that the man looks… pale, yes, gaunt, yes; but he also looks frightened and is pressing his hand to his chest, as if in pain.

“My friend…” Escalus pauses, not yet daring to voice his thoughts, even though deep inside he knows them to be true. “Whom do you love so?”

But Lorenzo is unable to respond, not when he is once again doubled over, coughing like mad and almost choking on the oh-so-familiar violet flowers. Escalus moves to hand him the medicine that he spots on the table, but the friar waves him away.

“It won’t…” one more flower drops to the floor. “Won’t help me. Not me.”

And as the coughing fit hits him again with even more force, almost like a seizure, the Prince finds that there is only one course of action that he can take now. So he simply puts the bottle with the potion back and steps closer, taking Lorenzo by the shoulders.

“If your own flowers can’t heal you, maybe mine could? They look exactly the same.”

And as the friar simply stares at him, shocked, uncomprehending, Escalus leans in and gently touches Lorenzo’s lips with his own, desperately praying that it would help.

Lorenzo does not move at first, too surprised to actually do anything but just stand there; but when Escalus is already about to step back, the friar’s hands grab his shoulders convulsively, and he is pulled back into the kiss. Lorenzo kisses him hungrily, desperately, like their kiss is water and Lorenzo himself is a traveler in a desert, dying of thirst. Which, to think of it, is not too far from the truth.

And, embracing him and responding to his kiss, Escalus does not even notice that his own ever-present pain deep inside his chest dissolves into nothing, as if it were never there, and that it suddenly becomes so much easier to breathe… Escalus notices nothing, really, save Lorenzo’s closeness, his warmth, his touch; he does not care about the weak taste of blood on his lips. The only thing that matters is that he was not mistaken in his assumptions, that Lorenzo loves him back; the only thing he feels is overwhelming tenderness… and overwhelming relief, for now everything will be all right, Lorenzo will be fine.

They both will.

Together.


End file.
